


Of Shells and Presentations

by strifechaos



Series: Tales of Scales [3]
Category: Hobbs & Shaw (2019)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Mermaids, M/M, Matchmaking, Miscommunication, Oblivious Brixton, Oblivious Deckard, Scheming Shaw Sibs, Tropes, courting, mermaid au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-03
Updated: 2021-03-03
Packaged: 2021-03-16 12:06:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29824674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strifechaos/pseuds/strifechaos
Summary: Brixton has no interest in helping his best mate find a Shell to Present to another.Deckard has other plans.
Relationships: Brixton Lore/Deckard Shaw, Megan Ramsey/Hattie Shaw, Roman Pearce/Owen Shaw
Series: Tales of Scales [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2109690
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4





	Of Shells and Presentations

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Omnivorous_Reader](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Omnivorous_Reader/gifts).



> Disclaimer: I don’t own Hobbs & Shaw, I’m making no profit from this, only having fun. 
> 
> This is for Omni, happy birthday! I thought I’d mix it up and instead of shobbs, write you a bricard mermaid AU!

“You know it doesn’t really matter what the shell looks like,” Brixton grumbled, swiping divots into the wet sand along the shore as he glared balefully at his best mate. 

Deckard continued to ignore Brixton’s ‘sage’ advice, instead the betta-mer awkwardly crawled and bounced down the tide, claws sifting through the sand, shells and seaweed; a small empty sack was thrown over one shoulder and dangled limply across his chest. 

Brixton glared hatefully at the bag. 

-0- Some Hours Earlier -0-

For the first time ever, when Deckard had come jetting past his cave that morning, hollering for him to “stop playing with himself and to shake a fin because they had plans”- - Brixton had hesitated to heed his call, reluctant to emerge and face him.  _ Not _ because he was up to any sort of activity that Deckard was screeching for all his neighbors to hear but because he’d been trying to avoid watching Deck make a lovesick fool of himself for that stupid giant, Hobbs. 

Mostly because he was himself tail over fin for Deck.

Despite Brix’s staunch promise that he wouldn’t bend over and follow after Deckard like a besotted guppy, he eventually gave in and peered out of his home to see what Deck was in such a hustle about. When he saw the seaweed netted sack around the betta-mer’s chest, Brixton assumed that his plan was for them to go clamming. His tentacles curled tightly around the door frame in anticipation , clams were easily Brixton’s favorite meal.

The temptation of spending an afternoon with Deck, while finding his favorite meal was a combination he couldn’t turn down. It didn’t hurt that Deckard had an eye for finding clams in abundance that any octo-mer could appreciate and that he always garnered them a generous supply. 

There were a lot of things Brixton was willing to do for a clam, and making a fool out of himself was only the tip of the fishhook. 

It was only after they swam past the mollusk grounds that Brixton’s suspicions breached faster than a humpback with hot gossip. He expelled a blast of water to zip past Deckard, dodging the extensive blue and red fins of the betta-mer and whirling around to face him, one tentacle slipping around the other mer’s wrist.

“Whoa now, hold up gov’ner — we’re headed in the wrong direction!”

Deckard rolled his eyes, tugging at Brix’s grip on his wrist, aimlessly. “We aren’t clamming, you fat bastard.” When the octo-mer didn’t release him, he gave Brix a deliberately hard tug and cross look when the larger mer still hadn’t budged. “If you eat any more of them they’ll be extinct before the next moon, Brix!”

Brixton gave him a queling look before releasing him, tentacles shifting restlessly around him in agitation. “First off, fuck you! Just because you’re the size of a seahorse doesn’t mean the rest of us can subside on plankton and krill! Second, if we ain’t getting clams what are we doing?”

Deckard glared back, mouth pinched and tail whipping in place so fast he was creating disturbances in the water that were starting to yank Brixton’s tentacles back and forth. 

“Did you just call me small and then imply my diet was that of a whale?! Triton’s dirty beard comb, you sound like my mum!” Deckard bared his fangs in a mock threat. “I eat a reasonable amount— just not a quarter of the clam population every fortnight like some arseholes!”

He swung his tail in a high arc so that the current he’d been creating by thrashing in the water threw Brixton into a spiral toward some coral. 

The unexpected nature of the attack left Brixton with bubbles spewed wildly from his lips as he cursed and tumbled -- struggling to get his own thickly muscled tentacles to break from the water’s pull, only to give up and expel a jet of water to keep from crashing into the fast approaching coral. “You dirty bastard!”

When he finally managed to catch up he bumped into Deckard’s side, roughly, hip checking him.

“So if we ain’t clamming, where’s the typhoon, what’s the rush?” Brixton asked, trying to diffuse the tension and not concentrating on how good Deckard’s skin felt against his own. “I could be back in my cave doing notoriously nasty things with myself apparently, instead of following in your wake.”

Deckard paused mid-stroke, freezing in place as Brixton noticed a hint of color highlighting his cheeks, the sudden stop creating a cloak from the riot of Deck’s colorful fins flaring up around them.

‘He’s  _ beautiful _ ’, slams into Brixton’s mind. Inescapably eye-catching in a way that Brixton has never quite managed to get over, and it steals his breath away, even now. He’s dreamt of encounters like this, confessing his feelings to the smaller mer and having them returned, exchanging kisses and touches until things grew too heated for open waters.

That’s not what happens.

“Yes, well, if I wanted to listen to a commentary about wanking, I’ve Hattie and her entire pod of friends to listen to back home. Now, can we get a move on or did you want to waste the sunlight with more pointless chatter?” Deckard growled, clearly flustered and unhappy with their journey so far. 

Brixton threw his arms out wide from his body, trying to appease his testy friend, backing up and bowing just slightly. “Fine, sorry, Deck. Let’s get a move on, ok?”

Deckard frowned, unconvinced at Brixton’s sudden change of mood and apology. “Are you sure you’re done being a silly bastard? I’ve no time for it today, Brix -- I’ve been given a task to accomplish before sun up, and I don’t have --”

“Yes! I’m fine, let’s go already if you’re in such a hurry!” 

They were both tense and on edge, worse than Brix could ever remember them being before. Brixton knew they could both be right arseholes but from day one they’d just clicked, been best mates just about from then on. They had the occasional row but for the most part got on like a clownfish and a sea anemone. Until the Soamon delegate had shown up. 

-0-

Brixton didn’t like being on the wrong side of Magdalene Shaw. She’d already given him a talking to about leaving Luke Hobbs alone. She was as fierce as a barracuda and twice as likely to end him. While Deckard remained blissfully unaware of Brixton’s feelings for him, his mother did not. She’d never warmed to him but apparently the same couldn’t be true for the kraken-mer from Samoa. 

Still, just because Queenie hadn’t befriended Brixton, the same couldn’t be said the her children. 

Owen, a Great White shark-mer, was always up for a race whenever they came across one another. They would speed through the currents, testing the strength of their tails against one another, gleefully body checking one another into slower currents or obstacles, anything to gain momentum on the other. The scar running down Brixton’s left lower shoulder was from Owen chucking him into a sharp stinging reef, the blighter. That anytime Owen brought it up, Deckard always pointed out that Brixton had still won the race, had the unintended effect of Brixton puffing his chest up like a glorified jellyfish and left his guts with a magma intense heat. He was even an ok clam finding partner, if Deckard was too busy, though the blighter tended to be more stingy with the haul than his brother.

Even Hattie, the baby Shaw and a dolphin-mer, would occasionally race them, though recently Hattie tried to pretend that she was much too mature to do so now. Her attentions were much more focused on shadowing the clan’s newest member, a Lionfish-mer that went by Ramsey, a sweet but wicked smart young mer.

But no matter what fun Brixton could have with Hattie or Owen, the octo-mer tentacles down preferred the eldest Shaw sibling. Deck was always down for a fight, eager to explore or go clamming; anytime they weren’t busy chasing the dozy otter-mer, Locke, from depopulating Queenie’s snail garden or helping protect the borders of their territory. 

Brixton had been all over the ocean, searching shipwrecks and finding new species, anything and everything with the feisty betta-mer by his side, never happier.

He’d planned on that never changing.

-0-

Little did he know just how much that would soon change. 

When Brixton had returned from completing a task for Queenie in Eteon a couple months back, he’d discovered that visiting delegates from Samoa had shown up. At the time, Brixton hadn’t thought much of it. After all, tribes, pods and clans often sent a few representatives to other waters before they migrated through. To test the waters as it were. 

At most he figured he’d have to show a few mers their place, and that Deck might find some new ingredients to trade and hoard. 

He hadn’t expected Luke, a kraken-mer to have absconded with Brixton’s best friend in his absence. 

Even after his return, any plans the octo-mer made to spend time with Deck, that noodle fin mer tagged along like an unwanted grouper. 

Everywhere Brixton showed up, the kraken-mer was there already with Deck, loudly proclaiming how amazing things were with his grubby tentacles tangled with Deck’s elongated fins, pulling the smaller mer to his side. Practically plastered to him, like a mated pair. 

The first time Brixton had seen it, his volcanic rage sent him zipping over to them in a surge of fury so blanent that even Owen, the mouthiest shark-mer didn’t comment when the wake Brixton created from his speed cost Owen a race. 

The kraken-mer had chuckled at Brixton’s outburst and released Deckard’s fins from his own as if he’d had no idea how the contact had happened but he’d been  _ smug _ about it, and it was far from the last time Brixton had caught the shallow sand fucker touching his best mate. Deckard had rolled his eyes and teased him for days about it. 

Another time, they’d agreed to meet up for clamming, only when Brixton showed up at their normal clamming beds, the loudmouth kraken was helping himself to the clams Deckard had already gathered before Brixton had arrived. He also refused the series of dismissals Brixton sent his way, staying with them like a Victorian chaperone.

During a race with Owen, his siblings cheering them on, Hattie rooting for Owen and Deckard cheering for Brixton, Magdalene had called Deckard away for some delegate duties with Hobbs and his brother, just as Brixton was overtaking the shark-mer.

At first it had been an irritant, grains of sand rubbing just the wrong way against one's scales, but when a moon cycle had passed and Brixton realized that they hadn’t managed to get any time with just one another -- not an adventure for new fish species or even explored the nearby shipwreck the currents had dragged in, Brixton worried that he might have missed something big in his absence. That perhaps Magdalene was plotting to pair Deckard with the wretched Hobbs. 

That Brixton might have missed his chance with Deckard.

-0-

So his attitude had become rather rotten when Deckard had finally disclosed what it was he was searching for on the shore.

A Shell.

Though tradition varied amongst the species of mers, selecting a Shell and Presenting it to one’s intended were traditional precursors for a pair to court one another before mating. 

If he were under an Urslan truth spell - - forced to be honest, it was the last thing that he wanted to be helping Deckard complete. Helping Deckard find the perfect shell to give his intended, leading his best mate on his way to pairing with that absolute beluga asshole, Hobbs - - it was unthinkable. Devastating. 

Deck’s mum not being a fan of his, but before he’d left for Eteon, Brixton had had his own big plans for how he wanted to Present a Shell to Deckard, if only the betta-mer showed a hint of interest before his mission he’s sure he would have already done it. 

The Shell he’d selected was small, only about the size of his thumbnail but it was a tantalizing blend of golden yellows that would stand out against Deckard’s bright cyan and deep red coloring.

So despite the betta-mer’s taunting and then pleading for him to help, Brixton refused to help search the shore for The Shell. Hearts broken at the idea that Deckard not only wasn’t interested in him but that he’d become so invested in Hobbs that he was already at the stage where he wanted to Present a Shell to him -- all without ever having talked to Brixton about it! He could barely wrap his mind around Deckard wanting Hobbs -- but to have never mentioned or discussed the relationship with Brixton,  _ his best mate! _ It was unthinkable. Made him question what had gone wrong between them. It’s why Brixton had tried to resist heading out with Deckard that morning, but the siren call of the betta-mer had been too alluring to ignore. Boy did he ever regret that now. 

-0-

The sun had long passed its zenith and Deckard was caked in wet and dried sand, bits of seaweed clinging to his wrists and still bouncing through the tides, searching. 

Brixton was _ starving _ , and after calling out his departure he drifted off to find something to eat. Preferably clams but at this point he wasn’t exactly picky, and if it happened to get him away from Deckard for a bit, for once — all the better.

-0-

“There you are!”

Brixton glanced over, surprised to see Deckard swimming his way. He figured the betta-mer would have found an acceptable shell by now and would be on his way to Hobbs, the great hulking kraken. Really, what sort of octo-mer needed to be THAT big?! He didn’t think that he’d see the other mer again that day. 

Deckard crashed into his side, jovial. “I should have known you’d still be stuffing your gob. Where’d you even find shrimp in these waters?” He didn’t pause to ask before taking several from Brixton’s tentacles and popping them into his own mouth in rapid succession, never mind that Brixton was notorious for not sharing his food . . . unless the mer in question was the eldest Shaw sibling. 

“That’s the ticket, I was feeling a bit peckish after searching around all day. I do love good shrimp, we’ll have to come back here.”

“D’you find what you were lookin’ fer then?” Brixton asked, smoothly and not at all like he was deeply invested in what his best mate’s next words were going to be. He was sauve like that, and generous -- he didn’t make a peep about Deckard being a shrimp thief. And not just because he knew they were the betta-mer’s favorite. That stupid lump Hobbs probably had no idea that Deckard liked shrimp, he’d probably try to give Deck eel to eat, the knobhead.

“Sort of, something that I think will do the trick, actually -- what do you think of this?” Deckard reached into the bag across his chest and pulled over a conch almost the size of his head. The pattern was a gorgeous brown and creamy white, with the softest pink inside. Several spikes decorated the top of the shell, making it a truly beautiful selection for one’s Shell.

Its mere presence in Deckard’s claws though made Brixton feel like he’d been thrown in arctic currents. With how exacting Deck was, he didn’t think there would be a chance that the betta-mer would find the perfect shell in one afternoon. He’d been dreading more outings to search for a Shell for Deck to Present to Hobbs. 

Leave it to Deckard to do the impossible. 

“Looks perfect,” Brix admitted, feeling like he was swallowing sand, “I’m sure Hobbs will love it.”

Deckard looked confused. “Why the fuck would Hattie care what Hobbs thinks of her Shell?”

Brixton stared. And stared harder, almost positive he wasn’t hearing properly, he could hardly breath. 

“Hattie?”

Deckard nodded, “Yeah, my sister? You know, the dolphin-mer that insists on competing with you and O’ for bragging rights in your ridiculous races?” Deckard rolled his eyes, fins flaring in annoyance. “The one so eager to start courting Ramsey that she begged me to find a conch for her to present to Ramsey after she returns from her delegate mission?”

“That’s who you’ve been searching for a Shell for -- your sister?!”

A company of piranhas could descend on Brixton right at this moment and he wouldn’t notice in the slightest.

Deckard rolled his eyes, snorting bubbles at his friend. “Of course that’s who, there’s no way Owen is even close to admitting he’d like Pearce to give him a Shell.”

Deckard held the shell aloft. 

“So, you never said -- what do you think? Do you think Hattie and more importantly, Ramsey will find it acceptable?”

“YES!” Brixton had never felt this relieved in his entire life. It was like he’d been granted a second chance, and there was no way he was going to let that ginormous kraken-mer get in his way this time. “Actually . . . after you drop it off with her, could you come by my place? There’s something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about.”

Deckard quirked a brow at him but nodded. “Sounds doable as long as mum’s done dragging me into escorting that bloody kraken around, he’s been a right nightmare! Shadowing me just about everywhere I’ve gone, mum of course refuses to budge on having Owen or Hattie take over -- you know how ridiculous they both tend to be when it comes to outsiders. Just let me get this safely back to Hats and I’m all yours, Brix.”

“Good, good, that sounds perfect.” 

Absolutely perfect.

-0-

By the time Deckard drops off the conch and makes it back to Brixton’s, the octo-mer had been able to retrieve his own Shell to Present. He’d hidden it in a nearby cache, not eager for the nosy otter-mer, Locke, to come poking through his cave and take off with Brixton’s Shell because the mad bastard thought it would be good at opening clams.

He’d even had enough time to buff it up a bit so that was particularly lustrous and eye-caching. He only planned on doing this once in his life, and he wanted to do it right, Deckard more than deserved that much from his potential mate.

It was only after he’d set out some appetizers and straightened up, that it hit him that it had taken Deckard too long to return. Worry starter to drift into his gut, worry that Deckard had been sidetracked by Hobbs or Queenie or even decided not to come back. Before he could settle on a plan of action though, a voice called out from the entryway. 

“Brixton?”

Brixton blew out a gust of bubbles, mind thick with relief. He clutched the Shell tight in his claws and crept over toward the head of the table. “In here!”

  
When he came in, Brixton was distracted from his own nerves by the odd expression on Deck’s face. “Is everything alright? You look like you’ve seen a leviathan!”

Deckard shook his head, waving away his concern. “It’s . . . it’s nothing, what’s going on, Brix?”

”Been meaning to talk to you ‘bout something, been meaning to for a while actually,” Brixton started. His tentacles fluttering, showcasing his nerves. He approached Deckard, reaching out to Present the Shell.   
  


Deckard’s fins rippled in shock. Then to Brixton’s consternation, the betta-mer started chuckling. 

Brixton was gutted.   
  
“Right . . . right, ok.”

He pulled the Shell back toward his side, feeling like a right idiot. Of course Deckard wasn’t interested.

“No, no!” Deckard rushed forward, clutching at Brixton’s arm. He reached into the sack across his chest, and pulled out a silver stone that was practically a twin to the one in Brix’s own hand. “That’s what took me so long, I had to get this from my cache. I would have been here sooner but that idiot Locke kept trying to swipe it.”

Brixton laughed, and laughed until his sides ached and his tentacles hurt from shaking so much. “We are quite the pair of idiots, huh?”

Deckard smiled, leaning heavily against Brixton’s side, wrapping them in a cloak of his colorful fins. “I’d be bloody proud to accept your Shell, Brix. You have to know that, after all this time! O’ and Hats haven’t stopped raggin’ in me about my crush since we met. I thought maybe after you came back from Eteon . . .”

”That kraken-mer kept getting in the way.” Brixton complained hollowly, wrapping a few tentacles around Deck’s tail, suckers gently pulling him closer 

Deck shook his head, leaning more firmly against Brixton’s shoulder. “Yeah, apparently him and Ramsey came up with some goldfish scheme to try and make you jealous. I tried to tell her it was utter rubbish but you know Hats.”

Brixton snorted, “Yeah, I definitely do, she’s stubborn just like her brothers.” He turned so that he could see Deck’s face, wanting no more ambiguity between them. “So I accept your Shell, and you accept mine - - what’s next, Deck? Where do we go from here?”

Deckard grinned fiercely, leaning in to place a tender kiss on Brixton’s lips. “Wherever we like, Brixton - - as long as you’re by my side, that’s all that matters.”

Brixton touched his lips, hearts fluttering.

”Yeah, I could get behind that - - us against the ocean!”

”To the end of the tide, Brix.”

-0-

The End

-0-


End file.
